Steampunkette

Aggro generation is a function of character, aggro reaction is a function of NPC AI. There is no way to increase the aggre cap for Tankers. it's not a function that's tied to the character it's a function tied to the way NPCs move, attack, and determine their current morale when it's time to run away. If you go into a mission as a tanker with your taunt aura active you can run through four or five groups then run back to the beginning of the mission and murder the first group. At that point the second group will already be running towards you. When they die in comes the third group. Even if you haven't interacted with them within the last minute there's still aggroed on you but their AI is telling them that they're not allowed to attack or even run over to you because there are too many NPCs fighting. Now let's say you do this and bring a second tank with you. And he runs up to the second group while you're still fighting the first one. They will attack him. Because he is a separate entity on the aggro table that determines their actions. But because the aggro table is based on the NPC, rather than the player, it cannot be increased on a per character basis. Now for the sake of argument let's say there is a way with a reasonable resource increase to cause the aggro check table to behave differently for tankers. How big a group would we want? There are some groups who would say that a tanker should be able to handle to mobs spawns or clusters of enemies. Cool beans, but what does that actually get you? By holding aggro of two spawns you're not increasing the rate that they go down because they're still at Target limit on the number of NPCs hit by a given attack. At best this would allow you to heard slightly more efficiently? But not really because it would take twice as long to kill the pull. Functionally it is impossible. Mechanically it is meaningless. Tactically it is dull. The only time it would really be useful is when somebody accidentally aggros a second spawn. Not only is that a hedge benefit, it would be pretty much entirely useless in the end game content because you're not going to get together 24 players and have only two or three of them be tankers or brutes while everyone else is somehow squishies unless you are specifically building your raid team like that. If tankers are going to have some kind of buff to make them shinier next to brutes it's going to have to be in a different facet than aggro cap.

There are actually a great many things that cannot be done in the City of Heroes engine. Would it be possible to create the code required to allow City of Heroes to do those things? With an infinite amount of time and manpower sure. But there's stuff that could take literally years with the development team we have to try and add to the game. There's also going to be stuff that's strictly beyond their abilities. No offense intended, obviously. To some degree or another we need to pull back our expectations. The biggest bottleneck in game development is artwork. It has been for a very long time. That's why schools like Full Sail University offer "game industry education" programs and then it's just modeling and artwork rather than the discussion of game mechanics or spreadsheet management. Artists are constantly cycling in and out of game development simply because they have their own projects they want to work on. The turnover for artists at any studio is going to be significantly higher then any other position except maybe community moderators and testers. Now there's a fairly large number of people who are volunteering to be artists for the game, and I am super excited about that! But until it's confirmed that the team has grown by adding artists we probably should aim for suggestions that don't require a lot of artwork. So things like proliferation of power sets or value tweaks, new ways to do old things, and stuff that requires minimal art investment are much more reasonable suggestions then a brand new power set with a whole new art style for all of its various effects or the creation of new costume pieces or weapon types or animations. Unfortunately those are all the coolest f****** things!

Reading this topic caused me to go make a Wind Brute. Kinetic Melee and Bio Armor.

The key to Bruting a KM character is to shift your thought process. Your attacks are a trio of single target strikes with the occasional big hit. Your Taunt is a Cone AoE with damage and Knockback (Or Knockdown). You get a neat Confront power with some damage on it. And you get a cool foot stomp, but it's really more for showing off. Quick Strike > Body Blow >Smashing Blow are your bread and butter. Use them to build up your Rage and Power Siphon stacks (Especially Quick Blow with just a hint of recharge, it's -fast-). Skip Taunt entirely. You won't need it. If a runner goes after the Defender and you're surrounded, poke 'em with Focused Burst. If you've got a clear line to a squad of killers, use Repulsing Torrent instead. Torrent is also nice AoE damage if you don't mind the scatter -or- the IO slot use. Or, y'know, Hovertank and shoot it down. Or aim for walls. Lots of options, really. Concentrated Strike is basically Total Focus. It's a big beautiful hit that hits hard, but it takes a while. Aim at something with good health 'cause you don't want it to die before you finish the wind up! Burst, like I said, is Foot Stomp. It does good damage, but instead of not being able to Fly while using it, your area is smaller. Really it's mostly for showing off 'cause the animation is cool. Or for when you've got enemies stacked -tight-. Hovertanking makes it -MASSIVELY- more useful.

I earnestly don't see a problem with it. If we keep adding incarnate level shifts in the future, it will make content more and more trivial. Let the slider go higher. I'd love to be on a level 35 team tearing through +6x8.

By that logic damage-dealing is a form of mitigation after all if an enemy is dead it can't hit you anymore. The true fact is that all game functions for combat can be broken down into two clocks Time to Kill and Time to Die. your goal is to make the time to kill clock shorter than the time to die clock. You can do this by making the time to die clock longer through damage mitigation in the form of heals, buffs, debuffs, controls, and defenses or by making the time to kill clock shorter through damage-dealing buffing and debuffing. But that's not really a useful expression of what the archetypes do. Which is why we separate them out as much as we do! Use control as its own pillar because it is functionally different than tanking or supporting even though they all three increase the duration of the time to die clock.

Control is not Tanking. Control is Control. A Tank does 3 big things: Manages Aggro, Takes Attacks, Mitigates the damage they take from the aggro. You could -argue- that Control locks down aggro, but it doesn't, actually. The aggro is still present. It's still being generated by everything everyone does to that controlled target. When the control breaks, the target is unleashed and goes after whoever has their aggro (Like when Purple Triangles pop up on an AV). Support heals damage, buffs you to prevent damage from coming in, or debuffs the enemy to reduce damage coming in by a specific amount. Defense does the same thing but for a single character. This is Partial Mitigation. Control is the only form of Absolute Mitigation. Control doesn't reduce the amount of damage an attack does by 30% or increase your HP so the attack means less. It just stops attacks from ever happening. If you're going to create "Pillars" then you need four of them.

It is a potential issue. Though that's a big part of why I suggested lower maximum resistance and lower maximum HP with no damage-enhancing inherent. A tanker's Bruising improves their damage and their whole team's damage. This character doesn't offer that sort of benefit to the team. Though... huh. Interesting thought: What if a Tanker's Bruising was Unresistable? That alone would make Tankers highly valued in AV Fights. Gonna add that to the thread...

How about we just make the Bruising completely unresistable? That one change would increase their value to a team MASSIVELY since they would be the only characters in the game that could apply a 20% (nonstacking, even between multiple tankers) Resistance Debuff on AVs even in Incarnate Trials. And in any encounter with multiple AVs you're gonna want multiple Tankers to spread that debuff around for more team damage.

Fair point. But what do you think of the idea itself?

So... /Nin makes a Sentinel capable of having 30% defense to all positions by level 22. Get Tough early on and 2 slot it with the Attuned versions of the +3% defense IOs. Grab Provoke and slot it for Taunt Duration. With the recharge you're already slotting for and hasten, you'll have plenty of chances to taunt. Start every fight with big AoE and when someone peels aggro off, Taunt. You won't have the passive generation of a 'Real' Tank, but you'll be hellaciously survivable if you build well and have a tool to control some aggro.

I think you're thinking too big... Manipulation Powersets are actually pretty terrible at providing any kind of defensive benefits. Their mostly single-target controls aren't particularly powerful compared to other sets and their damaging abilities are largely just lifted from other powersets (Martial Manipulation notwithstanding) I think a better way to go with it would be to develop "Travel Power Sets" for different concepts. Speedster? I'd absolutely go for an exceptionally mobile Assault Set. Combine powers like Burst of Speed, Whirlwind, and Savage Leap for some instantaneous movement and knockup/down/back abilities. Give 'em a couple of melee attacks that mimic speed and run with it. Then apply that powerset to an AT which gets assault as a powerset type. Heck. Combine it with some of the "Wind Control" powers and you could make one hell of a speedster! Or a Flyer with some animation changes.

After going over the AT Compilation thread and trying to understand what ATs are "Needed" to fulfill different roles (or more accurately provide different ways to fulfill the roles that City of Heroes uses) I came to the inevitable conclusion that City of Heroes needs another tank type. You can read about it, here: Wow... that's a little annoying. Can't just have links it creates a whole separate window. Cool in concept, annoying in practice... So to get to the nitty gritty of things: This iteration of Instigator is built around the idea of tanking, but would need to do it in a new and interesting way to set it apart from both Tankers (Who can take anything the world throws at them) and Brutes (Who can give as good as they get). It will still need direct aggro generation, survivability, and damage-dealing capabilities (Every AT must be able to Solo) For an Inherent I'm thinking of a cross between Gauntlet and Provoke. Melee single-target Provoke, AoE Provoke (melee or ranged) and ranged single-target Gauntlet. This is an archetype that doesn't get Taunt as a core power choice, so this would be a nice, simple way to create aggro but also -force- the Instigator to constantly be firing off AoE and ranged attacks to ensure they gathered and maintained aggro, even spending some ranged attacks to hit melee targets for the AoE Taunt provided. We'll call it 'Instigation' Range, however, by it's very nature, provides survivability. Arguably not as much as many would -like-... but it does provide it. So how about instead of giving them 'normal' defense sets with reduced defensive values, how about we give them -Sentinel- defensive sets? Using this method, we don't provide a significant benefit to staying in melee, like a Brute or Tank would get from various 'More Enemies More Benefit' powers like Invincibility, and also reduce their Passive Aggro Generation, forcing the Instigator to continue using their primary powerset to generate aggro. But we also create a situation where the Instigator-Tank must balance melee and ranged fighting. Gathering enemies in one place for the team to destroy them, but not holding them together for -long- because of the lower overall defensive power that the Sentinel Sets provide, since the Instigator will have to move to survive. At least until they get to Incarnate Levels and nothing matters anymore except how much aggro they generate and their base HP since they're gonna get hit a LOT. As for stats, let's put them with EATs for 85% maximum resistance so they cannot, even when buffed to hell and back, equate to the full resistance of Tanks and Brutes. Let's set their HP at 1440 (lower than Brute, higher than Scrapper), and give them the same Damage Buff limits as everyone who isn't a Brute or a DPS AT. Since their Aggro-generation is going to be based entirely on their damage let's give them a .95 damage value on melee -and- ranged. They do more damage than a Tanker or Brute (Baseline Brute, anyway), but they pay for it with some survivability costs. Both Brutes and Tankers get a "Second Inherent", though. Brutes with their Fury, Tankers with their Bruising. The Instigator is currently going to be pretty bad at taking the Alpha of a spawn... So how about we bake in an alpha-eater power inherent? Give them a ticking Absorb buff with a duration of 30 seconds, each 5 seconds they get another hit of it, with each hit stacking (Ignores recharge rate changes). If they're not hit for 25 seconds, they have 5 stacks of the Absorb Buff which gives them an alpha-soaking buffer of temporary hit points. We can call it "Resolve". Each Absorb buff clocks in at 3% maximum health for a maximum Resolve absorb of 15%. At max level that's another 210 HP at the start of a fight. Not -too- shabby with the resistance and defense a level 50 Instigator would have on SOs. For EPPs we could combine Control and Support with maybe a Sustain? Like how Tankers get Chillblain in their Cold Mastery or Sentinels get Rehabilitation Circuit in their Electrical Mastery. What do you think?

Hmmm... This thread leads me to question a single important thing: What kinds of AT do we actually need? While the current setup doesn't follow the traditional "Holy Trinity" of MMOs (Adding in a Pet Spec and a Control Concept changes things a lot) there's still roles to be had on a given team. We basically have 2 'Tanks' in Tankers and Brutes. 2 Controllers in Dominators and Controllers. 4 Support in Defenders, Masterminds, Controllers, and Corrupters. 3 Melee DPS in Brutes, Stalkers, and Scrappers. 2 Ranged DPS in Corruptors and Blasters. And 1 Pet type (Arguably 2 if you count Controllers) in Masterminds. The Sentinel provides another Ranged Damage AT. So we've got 3 of those, now. But we also have the EATs, heroic and villainous, which both bridge over some roles to varying degrees. Both Arachnos ATs provide some support, some melee, some ranged, and some control. The Kheldians provide damage, support, and controls (to different degrees). What we really need isn't another Melee character or Support character. Support has 4 and Melee has 3. What we need is a new tank. ... Gonna need to write one up. And I already have a nifty way of doing it in mind. Instigator: Take Two!

I love the concept, I have a few suggestions. 1) Less chains. I LOVE the chain heal concept. I think it'll look amazing in play. But the sheer quantity of chains you have in this set is going to wear out the uniqueness -very- fast. 2) Less AoE. Most support sets have -some- Single Target support. Everything except the rez in this set is AoE. Whether it's a chain or a PBAoE effect. 3) Maybe have a dedicated debuff or two that you can throw off that just hits a group of enemies, rather than your only Debuffs also being Buffs depending on who gets hit. 4) I also love the idea of Defibrillate creating a PBAoE damage zone. Maybe only 7-10 feet, but give it a knockback component and you'll create a really nifty effect. Kill the +Rech/End for it if you do that, though!

Update! I'm level 41 and I've got 1 set and 2 LotG+Def IOs slotted (All attuned 'cause I like having my bonuses when I exemplar). I respecced at 41 to start shifting my slots around to be more balanced between primary and secondary. She deals SO MUCH MORE damage, now. And with 44% Smash/Lethal resistance (I don't have Tough or my Dark Embrace slotted seriously, yet) I survive a hell of a lot better. Feral Charge is ridiculous with it's fast recharge rate, I love it. She just bursts out of the shadows and appears right next to her enemies to tear them up with a 3-Stack Rending Flurry. I particularly love when I'm beyond max distance on my Charge and the NPC I'm targeting comes running at me 'cause when the power goes off I appear behind them like I'm in a Kurosawa film!

The rage crash only really becomes a problem when you're in incarnate trials. By that time you should have bubblers or at least one person out of the 24 who has barrier invocation. This problem is a non problem. If you really want to get fancy take barrier invocation yourself. You can get the recharge down real low.

VEATs get support AND DEFENSE in their secondary powerset. That's, really, the only way this thing could ever work. A Baseline Scaling defense value that gets improved by increasing levels and is then further improved by a Fury-Based mechanic on top of two separate full powersets is just way too much. Instead, maybe try combining a powerset like Radiation Emission with another powerset like Radiation Defense. The AT gets -some- defenses and -some- support and has to actually pay an opportunity cost for their abilities like all the other Archetypes.

In about 2 Hours the Redeemers will start running Redside Heroics for Purpleside Good Times! You can send a tell to @Steampunkette if you'd like to join in the fun, or start up your own Purple Team! See you in-game, Heroes!

For what it's worth, that's not entirely true. Kheldians get a scaling Resist buff depending on ally comp, and Masterminds also get an innate mitigation power. I don't think it's very well balanced in this case; having a higher melee damage multiplier than Tanker puts them in Corruptor damage territory, and having Scrapper-level defenses along with a Support set fairly easily positions them as one of the most survivable ATs in the game. (I don't think these problems are fixable with merely numerical changes, either. As-proposed, it's just too close to Defender to be anything but a better or worse version of its sibling AT.) But I don't think that having "some" innate Defense or Resist is inherently unworkable, either. Kheldians do get a scaling resistance buff based on team composition. Also damage. And Mez Protection. It's great! But it's also at least SOMEWHAT balanced. By making it based on team composition you add randomness to the levels you get out of it in a way that causes the character to fill missing roles better (DamRes gets high if there's no tank on the team, for example). But it's also straight resistance. So debuffs and stuff still hit rather than getting deflected. But it's not a level-based scaling Defense bonus. Even if it were .5% per level it would be utterly useless until about level 14 when it became marginally okay and become way too strong by the time the character got to level 30. Whether solo or not. Having a 25% defense at 50 plus weave for another 7% and Maneuvers for another 5% gives a great low-investment road to softcapping positionals. Much less a level based scaling Defense -and- Resistance bonus. This AT would be as defended as a tank (With Zeal scaling to increase defenses that are already really high with 0 investment), with 'Surpassing Defender' support abilities at max Zeal, and scrapper level (Read; Really Good) melee damage. It's just way too much.

Neither an option nor a good idea. I'm not trying to be insulting when I ask this: Do you understand how Defenses and Resistances work in City of Heroes? Like the ToHit check math, damage scaling by magnitudes, and such? Defense has an absolute value by percentage regardless of level with a scaling increase in value determined by how high your defense is. (+1% defense when you have 0 defense means nearly nothing, +1% defense when you have 44% defense means a -WHOLE LOT-) There's also the issue that no other AT in the game gets anything remotely like what you're suggesting. Tankers, Scrappers, Stalkers, everyone else has to take multiple power slot choices to get even 'decent' levels of survivability, and then has to spend their enhancement slots and inf to get those levels up. You're proposing a class get that for FREE. Massive imbalance off the bat.

What's the Theme of the single pistol set? It seems to lack any connecting idea except "I have a gun and I will shoot you." Dual Pistols goes for the big flashy momentum-manipulating bullet curving gun kata stuff. So how do we make Single Pistol interesting and engaging, unique, and enjoyable without stepping on Dual Pistols' toes? The answer? Change it up to a 'Gunslinger' style. Make it the Pistolero powerset. There's more than a few Cowboys in Comics, after all, so it gives us some thematic variety! Quick Draw: Already thematic in it's name, just make it animate as a swift-draw hip-shot. Steadied shot: Change it to Steady Shot and have the character, hands still as a surgeon's, blast the target. Covering Fire: How about changing it to "Fan the Hammer" and have the left arm reach across the body to slap the back end of the gun repeatedly at a hip-shot level? Could even have the animations of the attacks draw and holster the gun after every shot with a "No Redraw" model for powerset use (the gun just appears in your hand while you're animating the attack) I'm sure y'all could think of other styles to do.

... you can already do this. Make an SG on one character and build your personal base. Set it to open with a code and memorize it. All your character's can use that base by inputting the code. You can also /altinvite your own characters. Or make personal bases for each of them. Or talk to peeps on your server about base access codes. Everlasting has it's own Yellow Pages of bad ass bases to RP in. https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,4383.0.html How cool is that?

Nothing in game says they don't stack with themselves either in the descriptive text: Or the Game Stats:

Rebuilding her build from memory and I'm fairly certain it was -always- a hackjob! Defenses M/R/A: 17.5%/29.3%/24% Nrg/Neg: 28.7% Fire/Cold: 22.8% Resistance: S/L 63.9% Recharge: 135% (with hasten) Not -terrible-, right? But also not Softcap... Until you hit them with poisons. Weaken is slotted for 21% ToHitDebuff, which brings your effective defenses up to: M: 38% R: 50% A: 44% On the first stack. Yup. That's right. Throw it twice. Heck, throw it 4 times 'cause the recharge is down to 5.5 seconds and the duration is still 30 seconds. It also reduces incoming damage by 30% (per stack) so your 63% Smash/Lethal is more effective. Of course you could also throw on Power Build Up before you throw it out. Then it's 33% ToHitDebuff for up to 2 stacks, since PBU lasts 12 seconds, but it's up to you. And hey, if you're fighting a bunch of Praetos and get aggro, just throw on Force of Nature for your panic button. It'll reduce incoming exotics by 40% or so (Except Psi, obviously), stacking with the 30% damage debuff 'cause that thing is powerful. At high end, those two powers make the entire powerset RIDICULOUS. Combine Neurotoxic Breath to make your enemies attack less often (and you can get that one double-stacked for 130% recharge rate reduction) and you're taking another third to half of the enemy's damage away. For the record: This build has Poison Trap in it just 'cause I like to lead enemies to it on a corner and then whirlpool -on- that corner to really screw 'em up! As far as Alpha slotting goes: Either Musculature for more damage or Intuition for more debuffs and range. With a range of 104 you'll be able to start fights outside of enemy range, maybe hit 'em with a ToHit debuff before they can launch the alpha, then duck behind crates or a corner near your poison trap and drop whirlpool when they get near the trap to slow 'em down before you debuff them in a stack. Now, of course, AVs get 85% resistance to debuffs. So you're only throwing 3-4% Defense and ToHit debuffs against them. But you're still debuffing their Damage at full strength. 30%. 60%. 90%. Each stack makes them hit less and less powerfully. Pop a purple or two at the start of the fight, an orange if you're feeling nasty, and then drop their ability to hurt people or resist the damage they take into the floor. Yeah, Mako's got huge defenses and you can't debuff them which sucks, but that's what Yellows and Accuracy slotting are for. Pull on your big girl panties and deal with it, not every set is going to be great against every enemy. http://www.cohplanner.com/mids/download.php?uc=1506&c=680&a=1360&f=HEX&dc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his post is long enough, so here's the Homecoming 2.23 Hero Designer link. And just for you? I added some chance for damage procs to Envenom and Weaken. Poison is one of the strongest support sets out there if you build to it's strengths and change your tactics according to your situation. You can walk through the world essentially unkillable while turning all of your enemies into pudding. Or you can charge in like a madman, try to debuff a wide-spread group with a close-spread debuff, and eat pavement.